Sunday, May 30, 2010

Alright, so apparently I lost my ipod. This sucks because anytime I'm going anywhere by myself, I'm listening to it. Case in point: my go train rides to work. So I brought a book to read, but with people talking all around you, it's impossible to cut out background noise and not listen in on conversations.

So this is when I started thinking about what the focus of this blog is about. There was a mom on the train with her three kids. She was clearly a flower child from the 60's who never grew up. Definitely not criticizing that. One, it really doesn't matter to me how you live your life unless it affects me in some way, which is the case here. Two, I think it's kinda rad she stayed the way (I assume) she was when she was younger. I definitely picture the older version of myself as a skinny dude in a Descendents shirt who still skates everywhere he goes. But the way she was with her kids was kinda pissing me off. She was definitely trying to keep her glory days listening to Cream going by living vicariously through her kids. That really gets my goat. I really don't like it when people try to force others to be a certain, especially if it's just to make themselves happy.

Fuck it let them be themselves.

Her youngest son, who I'm ball-parking to be about 8-9 years old, bought a Yellow Submarine action figure. Now, I'm willing to throw it out there that this little boy's interest in The Beatles is only result of his mom (sidenote: the spellcheck on my computer tried to correct the way I spell Beatles. I thought they were bigger than Jesus and shit?). Don't worry not hating on the Fab Four. But, when I was his age my interests were mostly Batman, Star Wars, Lego and going to Daisy Mart to buy candy. Obviously everyone's childhood is different but I think that most little boys likes would lean more towards my experiences. The mom definitely struck me as the type of parent who would shelter kids a whole lot and not let them watch power rangers and shit because it's "too violent". If you're a 8 year old kid who gets stoked about the power rangers beating the tar out of puddies and then go and pretend you're them while playing with your friends in the park, that's normal. If you're an 8 year old who sees that and then goes and starts kicking his little sister in the end so he can pretend to be Tommy, you're a moron. Morons need sheltering, everyone else doesn't.

They even fucking talked about keeping the toy in it's original packaging. That's just inhumane. Let the kid play with it, what the fuck else is it for? I guess when he hits a big payday after saving the toy in it's packaging, he can revel in his money to make up for his shitty childhood of his toys being withheld from him. A random dad sitting across from them chimed in saying that his son had something like 29 batmobiles and his daughter had like 70 Barbies all in their original packaging. That's just cruel and unusual punishment. Jesus, I can't imagine how miserable I would have been if instead of pretending I was running down Jack Nicholson (the best joker by a very wide margin, by the way) with my batmobile I was forced to admire it in it's box.

And give the kid an action figure. Playing with Yellow Submarine toys can't be fun.

People today, right?

The daughter was I'm guessing about 12-13, but sounded like she was 30. I found it seriously depressing.

Let your kids grow up on their own a little. I bet seeing them mature as people would be a whole lot more fulfilling than having them just grow into some mold you made.

Tuesday, May 25, 2010

1. Have a bunch of fun with my best friends. Enough to make up for barely seeing them through the rest of the year.

2. Save a decent amount of money. Enough to not have to ask my parents for money. Because doing that makes me feel like the world's biggest asshole. I really don't like doing it.

3. (Probably also the most important) Not be an asshole to a bunch of people. Looking back on the last little part of my life I feel like I gave a lot of shit to a few people who didn't deserve. I want to change that and make up for it. I like to think that most of the time I'm a pretty nice person, but sometimes I don't give people time or respect.

So yea, not going to be an asshole.

This band is kind of my soundtrack to doing so. I've talked about them tonnes, so I won't go into detail. In short; poppy, cute, catchy. What's not to like?

My brother got back from Europe yesterday. Even though he'd been up for about 48 hours, coming back his first comments on getting to the house were "So Tim, you got some PBR's downstairs?" He had a wicked rad time and brought back tons of cool shit and cooler stories. Yea.

Q: How good are The Smoking Popes?

A: Very fucking good!

I'm not scheduled to work as much as I thought I would be. In fact, I'm not working for a bout two weeks. On one hand this is good. There is tons of rad stuff going on that I want to do and tons of rad people to see and tons of rad PBR's to be drank. On the other hand I have a limited amount of funds that need to stretched out over a period that is longer than I would prefer. Damn yo. So I guess once I run out of money I'll have to revert to my life before my tax return. Oh well.

Thursday, May 13, 2010

So here's what's gonna happen: You are going to learn an instrument and start a band with me based off these three bands:

I'll play bass. I also play a mean sloppy rhythm guitar.

Cool?

Cool.

You should read this blog. It's Brenden Kelly from the Lawrence Arms. Even if you don't like his band (which you totally should. RIYL beer, raspy voice, pop-punk that's intelligent), I think it'd still make for a great read. Dude is funny, smart and way better than me at making pop-culture references.

So awhile I entered a contest by The Flatliners. You had to explain why you deserved to win in six words or less. A lot of people said how much they love the band and stuff, one guy even wrote out a whole paragraph saying how much the band means to him (I could probably do that too, 25 live performances and counting). But I just wrote "Because I have six dicks". I dunno, I just tried to write the least funny thing I could think of. Not even so lame that it's funny, just like "wow, that was dumb". Hey it worked! I won! The first time they shipped the package it got lost in the mail, so I got a new one. Here's the contents:

1 No Use For A Name shirt

1 Flatliners shirt

The Flatliners "Cynics" 7"

Against Me! "From Her Lips To God's Ears Remix" 12"

The Flatliners "Cavalcade"

Dead To Me "Little Brother"

Dead To Me "African Elephants"

Fat Wrecktrospective (Anthology+history of the label)

The Flatliners "The Great Awake"

Choking Victim patch

Against Me! patch

Descendents Cool To Be You sticker

Strike Anywhere Dead Fm sticker

Against Me! Searching For A Former Clarity sticker

Fat Wreck Chords plastic banner that's about 2' by 3'

Rock Against Bush cardboard thing that's signed by someone I can't makeout

Monday, May 10, 2010

So I finished my box of Peanut Butter Crunch and am now slipping into the cereal version of post-partum depression. This "cereal" really was one of the best things I ever tasted. Mostly because, I'm pretty sure, it was just balls of sugar that had some peanut butter flavour to them. Like, stuff made my teeth rot and I eat a fuck-ton of candy, which gives me some type of higher tolerance but not at all because that's not how it works wouldn't it just make them rot faster I'm only now realizing how dumb this sentence is and it should have ended a long time ago.

Anyways, um yea. Cool, story bro! The Stephen Egerton album went up for stream today. I talked about it already but short recap: Guitar player for both my 2nd and 7th favourite bands writes a bunch of songs in down time. He can't sing so he gets all of his punk-rock-star friends to do it for him and holy fuck does it rule. The best part of the album (unsurprisingly) (also I think best part, I only listened to it all the way through for the first time today) is the track that has Milo (from aforementioned 2nd favourite band) as the singer. It's the first time they've been on a track together since the last Descendents album. Rad fucking song.

There was a new How I Met Your Mother on tonight. The episode was good but I think for the most part the show jumped the shark this season. It was just like oh, Barney says something about boobs while Lily and Marshal have some weird married life fiasco Robin doesn't want to date that guy but actually does and Ted is still single every episode. Whatevs dog.

These posts are way longer than they should be. I plan to go to bed early, but then get way too fucking stoked watching Buffy The Vampire and find ways to occupy my time while I'm still awake. So I guess this is the result. Ah well, whaddyaganado.

Saturday, May 8, 2010

So this weekend my sister went down to Cleveland to visit a university because she's a great athlete and has wicked marks and is entertaining the thought of going to school there. Essentially the opposite of my educational situation. Haha! Anyways this morning she texted me asking if there was any cereal I wanted her to bring back. I jumped all over the chance to get some rad American food. Because let's face it, they are a lot better at making unhealthy, but delicious meals than we are.

So flashback. There used to be this peanut butter crunch ad where this kid chilling out in his house having some cereal when he sees some monsters (zombies?) walking towards his house. He gets scared but eventually the Cap'n busts in by doing that giant boat exploding out of nowhere trick and everyone relaxes while having a bowl of peanut butter crunch. At the time I was an impressionable 7-year-old (or around that age. Don't worry it didn't make that much of an impression that I actually remember how long it's been.) and wanted some so bad. I asked my mom to get some, but when she came back all she had was plain old regular Cap'n Crunch. I was like "Yo! What's the deal Colleen?" Anyways I figured that it is only available in the States.

Sooooooo anyways, I'm enjoying a bowl of said cereal right now. It is fucking delicious. Man. I also have a box of Fruity Pebbles and Trix waiting for me afterwards. I've always been a fan of sugary cereal and am pretty goddamn stoked about this, if you can't tell.

By this point you should be asking yourself one of two questions:

1. Why the hell am I friends with a guy who gets this excited about cereal?

2. Why the hell would anyone want to be friends with a guy who gets this excited about cereal?

I dunno, I'm a pretty huge dork. You should know that by now.

Yesterday morning was one of those days where it seems like a bunch of things just converge and it feels like the world is collapsing in on you and all you can think about is every mistake you've ever made in your life. Not exactly a recipe for feeling great. But the feeling always passes and you can't be too hard on yourself. Because if you don't give yourself a break who is going to? You should like yourself. I guess that's the overriding moral here? I sound like a fucking moron.

Alright, but this morning was the exact opposite. Everything felt awesome. Listened to tons of The Cure, Shook Ones and woke up to a new Mixtapes EP. They rule a whole lot. "Maps" is definitely going to be on my year-end list for 2010. They put it up for free and I put the link up here, sometime in January or February of this year? It won't be that hard to find. I highly suggest downloading that because 1. It's free. 2. The only way you won't like it is if you hate catchy poppy indie-pop-punk awesome songwriting. I'll put up the link for the new EP once it goes up, because shit ain't even out yet. It will most likely be free again, because that's how Death To False Hope Records operates.

Another pretty useless post, unless you like reading about cereal and music, I guess. My bad. I'm just all types of positive and I tend to ramble. Come hang out and be posi with me. It feels nice.

"Yea, there's not really anything to do up here. Unless you wanna hang out on my couch and listen to shitty metal."

Once more; go and download "Maps" by Mixtapes (it's free and posted on here) and "Thought About Growing Up" when it comes out. It's indie but they play fast sometimes and the music is fucking cute and adorable. It rules so much.

Crime In Stereo is like atmospheric/poppy used to be more of a hardcore band but still sort of are. I like them lots. Wayfarer is a super rad punk band from Ontario. Their debut album is free at www.juiceboxdotcom.com. Mockingbird Wish Me Luck is another rad punk band from Ontario that you should probably listen to.

June 3rd- Living With Lions/Sights and Sounds @Sneaky Dees

Living With Lions play Lifetime/Saves The Day/ blahblahblah pop-punk and play it exceedingly well. Their debut album "Make Your Mark" is one of my favourites. Sights and Sounds is a side-project of Comeback Kid and is rock with a hardcore twist. I saw them last year and they were good live.

June 10th- Joey Cape/Tony Sly @El Mocambo

Joey Cape is the singer of Lagwagon. Tony Sly is the singer of No Use For A Name. Both were cornerstones of punk in the 90's. Both do solo acoustic stuff now. Both are really fucking good at it. Especially Joey. He's probably my favourite folky-acoustic artist ever.

June 14th- Strike Anywhere/Bane/Touche Amore/Lowrider @Wrong Bar

Strike Anywhere play melodic hardcore and are fucking dynamite live. Stage-dive and scream your lungs out. Bane are one of my favourite hardcore bands and one of the best live bands I've ever seen. Seeing them awhile ago changed my outlook on music. Touche Amore are a band I've heard tons about but never checked out. Lowrider has members of Misery Signals and Comeback Kid. Gonnnnnnna be goooooooood.

June 30th- The Wonder Years/Streetlight Manifesto @The Phoenix

The Wonder Years are a pop-punk band. Most people lump them into the whole NFG-core sound that's pretty big now, but are so so so much more than that. They write songs about life and being positive. I owe pretty much any happy moods I have to them. I was in a funk and their music got me out of it. It's their first time in Canada. Streetlight's pretty good too, but their fans suck and I'm starting to grow out of them.

July 9th- Warped Tour @Arrow Hall (I'm assuming)

Everyone knows what Warped Tour is. Here are the bands I like that are playing: Andrew WK, Every Time I Die, Polar Bear Club, Set Your Goals, The Swellers, Alkaline Trio, Face To Face, Four Year Strong, The Bouncing Souls, The Flatliners, The Snips and Sum 41 (go on, hate). I know blah blah blah corporate, stupid not even punk any more festival. Well you know what? It looks like there's a fuckload of pretty damn good punk bands on it this year. Plus, if you want to miss a concert that has both Andrew WK and Every Time I Die, then you must really have something against partying.

July 24th- The Suicide Machines/We Are The Union @St. Andrew's

Yes, this is in Detroit. But if you think that The Suicide Machines aren't worth a measly 5 hour drive, you've got a few screws loose. FUCKING STOKED.

Thursday, May 6, 2010

No picks left, so I'm practicing with my fingers. Desperately trying to get my right hand up to Bri Robinson speed

Caught the writing bug again. I fucking love writing

Tons of time think

Tons of time to sleep

Tons of time to not wear pants

Tons of time to listen to great tunes

Downsides:

No money still. This makes plans very hard to make. Like flat broke, no cash

Don't get to see some people as much as I'd like. This will change shortly.

I was kind of bummed for some reason, but that changed later in the day. I'd like to think I'm getting pretty good at this PMA thing.

Yea! (Done in a Dave McWane at the start of "Evil Girl, Angry Girl" voice)

Sidenote:

I post ALL songs on here all the time. I think they are a very good band. If you have been in a relationship (which I'm assuming all 3 readers of this thing have), then you should find their music very relatable. It's poppy as all hell and the words that accompany it get me through the day. Still contend that ALL/Descendents are the best band at writing love songs ever and I'll defend that to the death. Give 'em a shot.

Wednesday, May 5, 2010

My best friends are a safety net. When I falter they catch me. When I feel great they're there to join in on the fun. And when we feel like things aren't going so well, we help each other out and get through it together.

They really are the best group of guys and two girls and I wouldn't fucking trade them for anything.